The Morning After
by Calleo
Summary: Follow-up to The Night Before. Also done for a site write on the Moon Guard forums.


_That's odd; where are the portals?_

Calleo stood, somewhat dumbfounded, staring at the now empty spots that used to contain portals to all major capital cities. He turned, shooting an unfounded, accusing glare at A'dal (who more than likely didn't notice the look, let alone the Elf), grumbling under his breath.

The consistent background 'chime' of the Naaru in the area didn't do much to help the warlock's mood; most found the sound soothing, he supposed, but the noise, to him, was nothing short of grating. Certainly, it had nothing to do with a mild hangover as a reminder that he'd spent far too much time in the Lower City the previous night. He tried vainly to tune out the noise by digging through his bags and muttering to himself.

Then his pockets.

Nothing.

_Damn. Out of teleportation runes._

Briefly, very briefly, he considered making the trek to a shop in Shattrath to pick up a few more, but the thought of having to deal with the gutter trash that infested most of the commerce areas of the city made him inwardly cringe. Calleo put his ears back, mostly in response to yet another person arriving in the city, only to say aloud (and to nobody in particular), "Hey! Where'd the portals go?"

"Not here," he snapped whoever was speaking to the walls, "obviously."

Social graces dictated that the Elf should have waited for a response, and if he'd been in the mood for it, he might have. As it stood, he'd had the sudden realization that he carried a couple of dimensional rippers at any given time, not to mention a hearthstone. The latter, at least, would take him to Dalaran; whatever the wind chimes of Shattrath had decided about the portals, Calleo was reasonably certain the Kirin Tor wouldn't shut theirs down.

Dalaran seemed unusually quiet. Not silent, mind you, just subdued, and once the mild disorientation from literal world hopping wore off, Calleo noticed. He paused in the entry way to the Filthy Animal, looking around the immediate area; aside from a few guards and one or two people milling about on the steps, the area was more or less empty.

_Odd, usually this place is so packed I have to shoulder my way through a crowd to the portals._

He shrugged. It was unusual, but not that unusual. One had to expect that Dalaran would begin to see less foot traffic as focus shifted away from Northrend, after all, and it wasn't exactly an easy city to reach; nobody in their right mind would go out of their way to visit Dalaran if they weren't a scholar anywa-

"Ow-!" Calleo stumbled backward, just barely catching himself and preventing a very undignified fall to the ground, "What in the name of-?" he rubbed his nose, checking for blood and glaring at the portal to Orgrimmar that wasn't there.

He'd run into the wall.

Behind him, he heard one of the guards chuckling, "Portals are closed; you'll have to take a flight to one of the zeppelins."

"Oh?" Calleo smoothed his robes out, trying to maintain some air of dignity after having just walked into a wall, "Why'd they shut them down? It takes ages to fly across a continent to get to the zeppelins."

"I just work here. I don't get paid enough to question what the Kirin Tor do," the guard rolled her shoulders absently, seemingly uninterested in further conversation.

Now, Calleo had a few choices: He could make the trek to either the Fjord or the Tundra and hope the damned zeppelins were still running, he could spend half the day wandering Dalaran, knowing that he'd be distracted on his way to one of the reagent vendors, he could sit in Dalaran and do absolutely nothing, or-a slow grin spread across the warlock's face. There were few things in life that gave him a thrill anymore, and tinkering with the dimensional rippers was one of them. Area 52 could be acceptable, being that it only took a couple of hours (if one took the short cut over the Twisting Nether) to reach the Dark Portal, but by this point curiosity started to overpower irritation at the portals being closed.

Winterspring, at least, would put him on the right planet, and there usually weren't waits for a flight out, and the scenery was nice. Not quite nice enough to make one forget that one was riding a wyvern, but nice enough all the same. If nothing else, he could get some work done on the flight, even if it was only in his head.

Still, that was a long damn flight. Calleo shook his head and headed up into the city proper to find someone who would have teleportation runes. Dalaran seemed eerily quiet, but he put that out of his mind and kept focus on not getting distracted by everything else in the city on his way to Sisters Sorcerous. Once there, he wasted little time browsing, and picked up a good supply of runes.

_Let's hope I don't end up in Stonard again. It's always Stonard._

For a change, he managed to get the spell right and end up where he'd intended.

Orgrimmar seemed...different.

Not in any tangible sense, the city looked as it had for some time now, but there was an overriding feeling of something just shy of panic in the air. Calleo stepped out of the way of the other mages in the building and figured the best place to find out any sort of information would be, of course, a tavern. On his way, he picked up several bits of conversation floating around, but nothing iconcrete/i. Some flooding here and there, a nasty earthquake there, some rambling about a dragon, a couple of camps in the Barrens being swallowed by the ground, but nothing that sounded like it should have caused portals to be shut down.

Calleo slipped into the Broken Tusk inn, finding it crowded, as it usually was and, for a change, being glad of that fact. Taking a quick inventory of the room, Calleo noticed that he was one of very few Elves around, which made keeping a low profile even easier. Height alone helped with that; he grinned to himself and made his way to one of the walls. Sitting would have been a bad idea, he'd been stepped on before by some lumbering drunk who didn't notice someone much smaller, and he'd learned that it was best to just move to the side if one wanted to listen. He stopped at the bar to pick up a bourbon and at least make an attempt to look like he was, in fact, there to drink, and listened.

Conversation came to him in bits and pieces, and the more the warlock heard, the more uneasy he became. Entire areas of the continent had been broken, split in half, flooded, or all three. Death tolls still coming in, hundreds, if not thousands still unaccounted for, never mind the cost to repair damage to-well, it sounded like everything, really. The Goblin cartels, Calleo was sure, would enjoy this. A large, three-fingered hand clapped itself onto the Elf's shoulder, breaking him out of his thoughts. He turned, seeing a Troll standing next to him, yammering on in a drunken ramble about nothing in particular.

"I'm not the best support structure you could have chosen; if you actually_ lean_ on me, we'll both end up on the floor."

The Troll laughed and draped an overly friendly arm around Calleo's shoulders, "Mebbe dat be true, but ja done a good job so far of keepin' me offa da ground, pinkie!" He grinned at the Elf, "So whatchu think 'bout everyt'ing?"

_I think you smell like you've been soaking in firewater and sweat since early this morning, you filthy savage._

Calleo smiled and ducked out from under his new 'friend', "I think, perhaps, you should have another drink and I should get some work done. Sitting around and drinking the day away isn't going to get anything done." He moved quickly, setting what was left of his drink back on the bar, and not giving the Troll a chance to catch him again, and ducked out the door of the inn.

Once out in the streets of Orgrimmar again, Calleo was hit with a realization: He wasn't at all put out that he'd missed what could have been a lethal night, in fact, he was glad he'd been away. Battle is made for people dumb enough to iwant/i to be on the front lines after all. He was, however, upset at having missed the _chaos_ whatever had happened had caused.

He might have missed the chaotic events themselves, but he sure as hell wasn't going to miss out on the profit that could come from the aftermath.


End file.
